


We Live It, We Breathe It

by escritoireazul



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fast and the Furious (2001), Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire Slayer, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-24
Updated: 2008-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-14 14:10:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/516052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/pseuds/escritoireazul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's a superhero now. Why the hell can't she save the world?</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Live It, We Breathe It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nikitangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikitangel/gifts).



> Dedication: Happy birthday, nikitangel  
> Spoilers: The movie, and through season seven of BtVS  
> Author's notes: Let's see. 1) The title is from Ja Rule's "Furious", from the soundtrack to The Fast and the Furious. 2) It would help a little to read the Letty section of "Ten Slayers Who Never Were (The Of All The Women In All The World Mix)", but basically Letty becomes a Slayer before the events of the movie. 3) BSs = Baby Slayers.

"Jesse's dead."

Letty tightened her hand around the phone, clenched down on it without thinking, until the plastic cracked and she felt the buzz of electricity running up through the wire.

"Letty?" Mia sounded different than she remembered, Mia sounded _wrong_ \-- of course she sounded fucking wrong. Jesse was dead, and Mia was calling her, halfway across the country, to tell her.

"I'm here."

"Everything went wrong," Mia said. Her voice quivered, but didn't break, and she kept talking, she kept making it real. "Dom should have never let Jesse race, but he was so distracted, he just wanted one more job. He was going to come get you, take you to Mexico. But Brian -- "

"Mia. Who the hell is Brian?"

"Oh, God, Letty." Letty knew Mia crossed herself. The Torettos were good Catholics, if lapsed. More or less. They prayed before meals. They wore crosses. They sometimes went to church. Christmas Eve and Easter, at least. "It's all my fault. I trusted him, I let him in -- "

"What happened?"

And Mia told her the whole terrible story.

After listening to the tears in Mia's voice, the way her words rattled against her teeth and stuck to her tongue, Letty wanted, more than anything, to break something, many things.

"Stay put," she hissed. "I'm coming."

"Thank you." Mia's voice dropped into a whisper. "Thank you. I need help, Letty, I don't know what to do."

"I'll take care of you, girl."

Letty waited for Mia's goodbye, waited for the click as she ended the call, and then, with the memory of the sound of home lingering in her ear, she ground the phone into little pieces of broken plastic and bits of metal, electronic skin and bones.

Then she went out slaying.

~~*

Faith found her a couple hours later. 

"This revenge thing -- not such a great idea." Letty didn't stop shoving things into her bag, weapons mostly, but clothes, too, to protect them. She didn't even tilt her head to show she was listening, because she really wasn't. "People do stupid things sometimes, that doesn't mean you get to go all biblical, eye for an eye."

"Jesse's _gone_ , dead, and maybe if I'd been there -- whatever. It doesn't matter. I'm gonna do this."

"Letty." Faith reached out, but Slayer senses and Slayer speed went both ways with them, and Letty dodged her with an easy movement. "I know you're mad and I know how much it hurts --"

"You don't know shit."

"It's not going to help, killing that guy, Tran."

"We kill things all the time."

"Yeah, _things_ , monsters -- you know, _not_ people."

"Mostly things that look like people. Not seeing a big difference there, they kill things, we kill them. Tran killed Jesse, I kill him. Besides," she shot Faith a dark, angry look, "like you're one to fucking talk."

"You don't know anything about me."

"Yeah, whatever. You're fucking history, remember?" She stopped packing, crossed her arms over her chest, and just stared at Faith, belligerent and bitchy and all those expressions she used to keep people at a distance. "We hear all the shitty details. How you killed a man. How you _didn't care_."

Faith pressed her lips together, but nodded her agreement. "Yeah, sure, okay. How about the way I went to jail and did my time? You hear about that?"

Letty shrugged. "Whatever. You don't get it, do you? _You_ should. I don't care."

She zipped the duffel and swung it over her shoulder. Faith was between her and the door, and she waited a minute for her to move. She didn't want to fight. She didn't want to waste the energy.

Finally Faith threw up her hands and turned away. "You're hopeless," she said, and there was something in her voice Letty didn't understand. She really didn't care, though. She couldn't care. There wasn't time. "Go on. Get your revenge."

Letty headed for the door, Faith only a step behind. She expected her to drop back when they reached her car, but she stayed right there, a solid presence. It was fucked up, Letty was so used to having her around. She didn't want that.

"You figure out yet that I'm coming with you?"

Faith's smile was small, and smug, and Letty, try as she might, couldn't find one reason to argue with her. Two slayers were always better than one.

"Better get in the fucking car then."

She left tread marks on the driveway and the delicious smell of burnt rubber stayed with them for miles.

~~*

Faith knew how to drive.

Letty had no idea. Not once, in almost a year, had Faith climbed behind the wheel of a car. She was content with meaningless rides to nowhere, always called shotgun, and put her feet on the dash, but she didn't drive.

Except, it seemed, she did. Which was good, because up until then, Faith was the first woman Letty knew -- the first _person_ \-- who didn't. It helped keep her separate in Letty's mind. Cars were her life before. Vampires, and Faith, her life after. Didn't mean she had to like it. She was going back home, and back home meant driving. Faith might have been able to kick everyone's ass all at once, but it wouldn't mean a damn thing unless she could drive.

Around hour fifteen, after five minutes at a truck stop, just long enough to piss, grab food, and fill up the gas tank, Faith climbed across the console and into Letty's seat. The _driver's_ seat. Letty stared at her through the window, and blinked so slowly the world disappeared for long moments.

Faith rolled down the window, and cocked her head. "You're exhausted. Get in and go to sleep."

In about a day, she was going to be the one who gave all the orders, who solved all the problems she'd left behind. She was going to save a world which didn't want her. They hadn't even told her about Brian showing up and Mia falling in love. No one had. No one had said a fucking word.

Course, she hadn't exactly called home all that often either. Dom wasn't a talker, especially not over the phone. Then it got too weird. She couldn't exactly tell them why she'd left. She certainly couldn't tell them about why she stayed, not when Dom was supposed to be the love of her fucking life. He knew why she'd taken off, had fucking encouraged it, but she wasn't going to rub it in, all the ways she was stronger than him. Unless he had told, none of the others knew the truth.

For once, for now, she followed orders without complaint, walked around the car, and got in. She was asleep before Faith hit the highway, even though she killed the engine twice and ground three gears on the way.

She woke up once, when the sun came up and filled the back window. Faith had her elbow propped up on her window, the radio on low, and one hand on Letty's thigh.

Letty scooted around to find another comfortable spot and went back to sleep.

~~*

"Letty! Oh, thank you, God, thank you!" Mia threw her arms around Letty and held her tight. Her face found Letty's shoulder, and when Letty placed her hands on Mia's waist she could feel the tremors rattle her body. Repressed tears, probably. "I'm so glad you're here."

"Hey." Letty slid her hand around, rubbed the small of Mia's back. When they were teens, in high school together -- when Letty bothered to show up -- and Letty first realized she liked girls, too, not just guys -- liked Mia, not just Dom -- she would touch her, as tentative as she got, one hand there, fingers on her back, as they stood in the halls together, or passed each other on the way to class. 

It still worked; Mia melted against her, the tension running out of her muscles, and though Letty was more than strong enough to support her, it was a hard angle to catch someone else and they both staggered a little.

Faith was watching, and that made it worse.

"Where's everyone?" Letty asked, and pulled back enough that she could see Mia's face. She meant, of course, 'where's Dom?', but wasn't about to say it.

"Vince is in the hospital. Leon is -- gone. I don't know where. Jesse -- they took his body."

Damn it. Mia didn't make it easy for her.

"And Dom?"

Mia shrugged, and looked away. "He went off after Tran, but I don't know. There's been no news. He could be in Mexico by now." Mexico, their dream, once, before vampires. They'd talked about it in abstract, and then started saving money to make it concrete. Then things changed. "He could be dead."

There wasn't enough grief in the world.

"I'll find him, Mia. I promise." She ran her hands up Mia's arms, cupped the sides of her neck. "I'll find him, and I'll find Tran, and I'll take care of things."

"I know." Mia's voice dropped into a whisper, and she leaned forward, rested her forehead against Letty's. "I'm so glad you're back. I missed you."

Oh, how Letty had missed her too.

Behind them, Faith cleared her throat. She probably wanted an introduction; that was the last thing Letty planned to do, go all formal with them, the two women, in all her life, she'd fucked.

"Sounds like our best bet is to find that guy, Tran. Maybe he'll lead us to your Dom."

Or maybe Faith didn't want formality either and just wanted to get on with things. If they'd been alone, Letty would have kissed her for it. If they'd been alone, it wouldn't have mattered.

"Yeah." Mia pulled back when Letty let go. "Come on in. I'll give you guys the details."

~~*

For all the reasons she gave to not take revenge, Faith threw herself into the hunt. She was good, too, at extracting information. Letty was intimidating, and stronger than any non-Slayer, but the people they saw, they remembered her as Dom's girl, or, worse, the teenager tagging along behind that Toretto boy.

Faith, however, was a force of nature sweeping through L.A.

She didn't just return to her old stomping grounds, she decimated them.

It worked, too. Before they had been there twenty-four hours, Faith had half a dozen places to look for Tran. They hit the first two that night, his parents' vacation home -- no luck -- and the family doctor -- hadn't seen him. In between, she made time to slay. 

They quit for the night near sunrise, but Letty didn't go straight inside to bed. She was sleeping on the couch; it hurt too much to go upstairs. Too many memories in all the rooms. Growing up, she spent more time with the Torettos than her own family, and now all that history was coming back to kick her in the ass.

She watched the sun rise. Somewhere out there, maybe in the city, maybe not, was Jesse's killer. Somewhere out there was Dom, maybe alive, maybe dead.

Faith joined her on the back steps, lit a cigarette, and nudged Letty with her boot.

"You're a mess, girl. You gotta get it together."

Before Mia's phone call, Letty would have argued. Now she rubbed one hand over her face.

"I should have stayed. Maybe if I'd been here…."

Faith took a long drag, and then blew smoke out her nose. "You can't know, and you'll drive yourself crazy if you think about it too much."

"I should have been here."

Faith sighed. "I know the feeling."

"Yeah, right."

"I do. The world almost ended here, and my friends fought it, and they never called me. Not once, not a goddamn word. I would have come running, they didn't even have to ask, all they had to do was pick up the phone and say things were bad."

"Did they win?"

"Look like the world ended?" But then she shrugged. "No idea. Maybe yes. Maybe they didn't, and all the monsters went their separate ways. You saw how busy we were tonight. I don't know who lived, and I don't know who died. Probably everyone. Or maybe they still don't want to call."

Letty grabbed the cigarette away from her. It wasn't a drink, but it would do. What she really wanted was Dom grilling chicken outside, and Mia cooking vegetables inside, and as much cold Corona as they could stomach. 

Faith would have liked it here. Or maybe it was just that Letty would have liked Faith here, sexy and sarcastic. She would have fit right in. There's not a whole lot Letty likes about her new life, and she'd rather have the things she did mixed into her old.

"We'd better get some sleep," Faith said, and put her hand on Letty's shoulder. "I'm gonna crash. Your friend gave me a bed upstairs."

Whose room? Jesse's? Dom's? Letty didn't know which would be worse, Faith in the bed of a dead man or Faith in the bed where Letty used to fuck Dom.

Maybe Mia's bed. Maybe Mia would be there too.

Letty still didn't know which was worse.

~~*

Something came in the back door, but Letty didn't open her eyes. If it was something supernatural, it might notice even that slight movement. If it wasn't, no matter, she didn't need to look anyway.

There was shuffling, heavy footsteps trying not to trip in the darkness, and whatever it was came into the living room and dropped into a chair hard enough it groaned.

Letty reached up and flipped on the lamp, startling a yell out of Dom.

She thought she'd recognized his smell, and the way he walked, and maybe even the sound of his breathing. He had meant so much to her for so long.

"Fuck, you scared the shit out of me," he grumbled, rubbing his eyes. "Did you have to blind me, Mia?"

She sat up and crossed her arms over her chest. She didn't have to say anything.

Sure enough, his vision cleared, and the look on his face was worth blinding him and surprising him and almost worth being away for so long.

"Letty? What the hell are you doing here?"

"Mia told me about Jesse. And she thought you were dead. I came to – why didn't you call?"

Dom rubbed his hand over his head. She could hear the scrape of stubble. He hadn't shaved in awhile. Made sense, if he was hunting Tran. The shadows on his scalp and along his jaw made him look older.

Maybe it was the bruises beneath his eyes. He hadn't been hit, she was pretty sure -- and Letty knew what punches looked like -- he was just fucking exhausted.

She kind of felt the same way.

"You got your own life," he said, and dropped both hands into his lap. "I didn't want to drag you back here."

"This is my life." She clenched her teeth together, tried not to say something she'd regret. "This is my whole fucking world."

"Not anymore." He wiped his hand across his face. "Maybe I was wrong --"

"You damn well were!"

He held up one big hand. "I was wrong not to call. But I thought it was the right thing to do."

"Yeah, well, maybe Jesse'd be alive if you had."

"You couldn't save him." Dom heaved a great sigh. It wasn't something she heard him do often. "That was something else, he got himself into it. He just didn't think."

"He never did." She looked down at her hands, stared at the calluses. They were different now, from gripping wood instead of playing with metal. The map of her fingers had changed. She wondered if Dom was different too. Probably.

Definitely. She could see it in his face when she looked up.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here. I shouldn't have left."

He shrugged. "You had your things." There was a pause, and she knew he still wasn't comfortable saying what came next. "You had your destiny."

Once, she hadn't believed in it any more than him.

Once, if pushed, she would have named him her destiny.

"Were you there? When it happened?"

"Oh yeah." He wouldn't meet her eyes, and she looked at her hands in her lap again. "I can still feel his blood on my hands."

Letty spread her fingers wide. She knew all about that too.

"Go to bed, Dom," she said. "There are things to do later, but right now we both need sleep." She expected him to argue, but he stared blankly at the floor for a minute and then hauled himself to his feet. "You gonna wake Mia?"

"No. I'll surprise her in the morning."

It might have worked, too, if Faith hadn't put him into the wall when he flopped on top of her in his bed.

~~*

There was no more sleep after that. Mia made coffee, and then breakfast in the tiny kitchen, while the others slumped around the dining room table.

"So tell me why there's a strange woman in my bed?" Dom's voice dropped into a growl, that sound he made when he didn't get enough sleep and was pissed off all at the same time.

"She's a friend," Letty said. There were plenty of other labels she could have given Faith, but she left them alone. It was too easy to fall back into what she had been before, obsessed with cars, in love with Dom, enchanted by Mia. Life had kind of been a mess, and she had been way more than a bitch. "She came to help."

"Just what do you think you're going to do?"

For a second she was sixteen again, and he was smirking at her in the garage, challenging her, all his tools in their proper places and an engine between them. She could break it down fast as anything and put it back together, but he didn't know who the hell she was. She'd show him.

Letty scowled. She'd show him a-fucking-gain if she had to.

"You find Tran yet?"

It was his turn to scowl. "No. Lost him when Brian got in my way. Then I had to lay low."

"Where is Brian?" Mia stood in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. She smiled most of the time, but she could do pissed with the best of them, and she looked about ready to kick ass. Dom's, if he was the one there. It was both awesome and hilarious.

"Don't know." Dom shrugged, but his expression went darker. "He took off. I thought he'd come here, try to -- explain."

"Fuck him," Mia hissed, and stormed back into the kitchen.

Letty put her head down on the table. There was so much she'd missed. She should have been there.

Faith's foot bumped against her leg.

God, this sucked. She didn't even feel right in the Toretto home. That was it, right there. Once it hadn't been the Toretto home, it was just _home_. She'd lost that along the way. What she had gained wasn't worth the loss.

~~*

"So what are you going to do in prison?"

They were patrolling. Or maybe they were staking out downtown L.A. just in case Tran showed up. It all ran together, and Letty no longer knew what she was supposed to be doing when. Not that it mattered.

Letty shrugged, and shifted her stake from one hand to the other. Her palm was sweaty. The city was hot and the air thick with smog. She had been used to it, but she had spent too much time in smaller towns and the middle of nowhere, hunting monsters. She took the fresh air for granted.

Faith stretched her arms high overhead so her shirt rode up her stomach and her back popped. "I mean it. Do you even know what it's like there?"

"I've done a couple overnighters. And Dom --" She stopped. That wasn't her story to tell.

"Overnighters and storytime, not really gonna cut it." Faith grabbed Letty's arm, made her stop walking. "If you think it's bad, you have no idea."

"Of course it's bad. It's not supposed to be party time."

"If you get caught, you're going to prison. And prison is something else for people like us. We're hunters, Letty. Put a hunter in the cage, you slowly die inside. All you have are your thoughts to get you through, and you start to forget why you want to get through anyway. Then you're the only one left, and no one even bothered to tell you. The only way you even know is because you felt it when she died, and you're the world's salvation, and you're locked in a fucking cage. You deserve to be there, but the world shouldn't be left on its own."

Her fingers dug deep into Letty's arm; it would momentarily bruise, and then heal. Nothing lasted, not a single mark, nothing to map what her life had become.

"Faith, there are plenty of other slayers."

She shook her head, and let go. "Yeah. But there's only one you. You really ready to give that up?"

"Of course I am. I should have been here."

"How can you be so sure he'd be alive now? How do you know you would have changed things?"

Letty shrugged again. "Still should have been here."

"For Jesse?" Faith asked, and then raised her eyebrows. "Or for Dom?"

It was a good thing they were jumped by some sort of monster dog just then, because Letty really didn't have an answer to that.

~~*

"Why the hell didn't you call me?" Letty snapped and shoved Dom in the chest, hard. Not as hard as she could have, she didn't want to kill him or anything, but goddamn she was pissed.

"I was trying to stay away from the fucking cops."

"Before that! Why didn't you say things had gone to such shit you had to start jacking trucks? I would have come back for it. I wanted to come back for Race Wars, I just --"

"Got busy with your new life?"

Did he sound pissed? Hurt? What the hell was going on here? "You could have asked me to come back." Letty rubbed her nose. "You could have asked me to stay."

"I believe in monsters for you. I believe in super-powered girls destined to save the world for you. Did you really think I was gonna be selfish enough to ask you to give all that up?"

"Give up being a freak?" She didn't mean it, though. It was just what some of the baby slayers said, when they got together and bitched. Sure, maybe it was great to have super strength and a place to belong, but most of them were teenagers, and teen girls loved to bitch.

"Give up being something special." He crossed his arms over his chest and met her gaze straight on. "Give up your thing."

"My thing." She mimicked his pose and sniffed.

"Yeah, your thing." Dom scratched the back of his neck. "Mia has school, and Jesse--" He stopped, cleared his throat, and then continued. "You never asked me to give up cars. Why would I do that to you?"

"Cars were my thing," Letty said. Her throat was tight. They'd fucked for years. He'd taken care of her when her parents split up, and when her mom cut town, and when her dad died. She'd stayed with him when he almost lost the house, and when he was in that accident, broke his arm, and couldn't race for months. She'd left Mia for him, and if that wasn't the most fucked up situation, she didn't know what was. How could he not know how she felt? "Cars and _you_."

"Fuck, Letty." He rubbed one hand over the top of his head. He did that a lot when he was thinking, when he was nervous. "I know that. And it was great. But that guy, he said they needed you. He said you would save the world. That's bigger than cars, and me, and us."

It wasn't like he'd sent her away. She had made the choice to go. She had made the choice to stay even after she realized it meant spending so much time with teenage girls training to fight. She had made the choice to leave him behind.

She wasn't showing off for him. She couldn't be. He was too far away.

Except she was and she fucking knew it. God, what a mess. He turned her into an uncomfortable fifteen year old. No wonder she didn't get along with the baby slayers. She was reminded way too much of what she'd been like back then, and how it felt to want so much and not know how to get it.

No matter what she had done, he hadn't noticed. And she was still trying prove herself to him.

It wasn't supposed to be that way.

The silence stretched between them. Finally, Dom cracked his knuckles. "Dinner?"

"Sure. Why not."

~~*

"Why are you so gung ho on me not going after Tran?"

Faith lit a cigarette and then handed it over before Letty could steal it. They had beers and the night was actually chilly, a good break from the heat. There was something kind of special about sitting on the back steps, two Slayers after a successful patrol. L.A. sure was full of monsters these days.

"You mean, besides the fact you won't be of much use in prison?"

"Yeah. Besides that."

She lit another cigarette. "I get wanting vengeance, I do. I used to want it for everything. Drop of a hat and looked at me the wrong way and all those shitty sayings. But…."

"But?"

"Lots of people could want vengeance from me in lots of ways." She twisted her cigarette between her fingers, then flicked the end and sent ash flying. Some of it landed on her boots. It almost looked like vamp dust. "Probably should extract it, too. Except I don't want them to. I learned, eventually. I changed."

"So you're saying I shouldn't go after him because he might _change_?"

"No. I'm saying you killing him, that's not the right way. What I used to do, that wasn't the right way either."

"You can't trust the cops."

"I don't. The whole legal system, it's so fucked." Faith shrugged. "It's the only way we have to deal with it though, with crime and shit."

"Not true. We can take the law into our hands."

"So you kill Tran. It doesn't change anything. Doesn't bring your friend back. Just means you're fucked too, and me 'cause I'm left alone with the BSs, and maybe the world, if you're the one who's supposed to be in the right place at the right time during the next apocalypse."

"So you're saying I shouldn't go after him because maybe I'm fated to save the world?"

"Maybe." She shrugged. "It's not like I can say there isn't anything out there, fingers on the world, making things happen." She glanced sideways at Letty. "Slayers. Vampires with souls. Prophecies. There's something out there."

"So I'm just supposed to let him go?"

"We don't get to do everything."

"I'm just supposed to hope he gets punished by someone else?"

"Maybe he won't. People get away with things." She finished her cigarette and stubbed it out. "Maybe he will. We don't get to know everything, either."

That wasn't fair. Letty wasn't about to say that. She knew life wasn't fair, and not just because she was a Slayer. It was just part of life. It wasn't fair when the guys underestimated her, like having a dick had anything to do with repairing and racing cars. It wasn't fair guys thought her body was fair game for whatever they wanted to do or say. It wasn't fair that she'd been magicked into being a Slayer before her time. It wasn't fair she didn't have a choice about being a Slayer at all. And it wasn't fair that for all her goddamn super powers she couldn't save Jesse. Apparently she couldn't avenge his death, and that was the unfairest thing of all.

~~*

"So you're just going to let Tran go? Just like that you're done?"

"Killing him won't bring back Jesse," Letty said, purposefully echoing Faith's words. She didn't sound very convinced, and she wasn't, not really, not enough to phrase it her own way. Maybe she wasn't the one to kill him. Maybe she was. She wasn't going to get find out. "I'm sorry I wasn't here."

Dom touched her hair, twisted back into braids tight against her scalp. His hand moved to her cheek and his fingers were callused and warm. "You can't work miracles."

"I am kind of a superhero now." She forced a smile, but she could tell it was crooked. "Miracles come with the territory."

"I miss you, girl." His thumb touched the corner of her mouth, and then he bent to kiss her. His lips were rough, but he kissed as good as ever, and it was better than racing, or tearing down an engine, or kicking back with a beer. It was everything she had missed about her life.

It just wasn't for her anymore.

"I'll come find you in Mexico." Someday, maybe. If she got to have a happy ending. If Dom got to be a part of it even if she did.

"We'll be there."

Mia agreed to go after all. Letty was shocked; she would have bet Mia wouldn't give up her studies for anything. Everyone changed, she guessed, whether she expected it or not. The only ones who didn't were dead.

She could have said a hundred other things, including good-bye. Faith waited for her in the car. Letty put her hand on Dom's shoulder, then turned and walked away.

~~*

"So, instead of going straight back to Cleveland, how about we swing north? I got a call from headquarters, there's some vampire activity up in Santa Cruz. I thought we could check it out."

Letty gunned the engine and peeled away. She kept her eyes firmly away from the rear view mirror until Casa Toretto was out of sight. She wasn't going to look back. The time for that was over.

She was Letty the Vampire Slayer and she had work to do.


End file.
